Tokyo Drifter Review

Tokyo Drifter (1966)

Dir: Seijin Suziki

Tetsuo walks through a deserted train cemetery wearing a white jacket, he stands next to a man who’s wearing a black jacket. Through conversation we find out Tetsuo was once part of a yakuza gang led by Kurata, who has decided to give up his life of crime and to whom Tetsuo is loyal to. The man in black works for Otsuka, a rival gang boss who’s trying to convince Tetsuo to join him. He refuses, is beaten up and earns Otsuka’s hate. This is the beginning of Tokyo Drifter, shot in black and white, which contradicts the color-filled story that follows.

Otsuka pushes them back into the crime life after he ties them up to a real state scam, which forces Tetsuo to leave Tokyo and live the life of a drifter while trying to survive the attacks of Otsuka’s men who are trying to get rid of him once and for all.

Many other characters come into play as the plot gets thicker and thicker, but none of them are as impressive as Tetsuo. He is a classic action hero, too smart, fast and strong to be killed; a bullet repellant that never runs out of bullets himself and a master marksman. He fights to survive and because of his loyalty, which makes him pay a heavy price later on. At first sight, this seems like any other yakuza/gangster movie, and story-wise it pretty much is. But the way the story is treated is what makes it truly special. 

Director Seijun Suzuki created a film that is very much a product of its era, but one that stands the test of time like few others. He seamlessly combines amplitude of genres to make this a complex and intriguing gangster drama, a silly comedy and sometimes even a musical.

The colors are vibrant and the visual motifs are endless and can be seen everywhere from the designs of the cars’ painting to the backgrounds and the clothes the character’s wear.  But they’re not only there because they look pretty; everything has a meaning to it, the clearest example is that through the movie Tetsuo wears a light blue suit while Otsuka, the villain wears a bright red one. The set design is also inventive as well as absolutely insane. This is one of the clearest examples of how colors and lightning can be used to enhance the story and our understanding of the characters and the director’s intentions.

The editing is also extremely weird. There are many jump cuts that happen right in the middle of the action and completely throw the viewer off. One example is when Tetsuo is being chased by one of Otsaka’s men on foot; he hides behind the pillar of a bridge, we see the enemy walking above the bridge without noticing Tetsuo hiding beneath, a fast cut to the train signals and then cut back to Tetsuo facing the man in the middle of the train track with the train coming dangerously close to them.  There are many more moments like this through the movie that are absolutely bizarre.

And yet, the movie is able to get away with it because it just adds so much to the whole experience of watching it. It’s not hard to connect the dots of what happened between one moment and the other which makes it really interesting because the director fully trusts his audience’s ability to understand the procedures and they actually help the pacing of the action sequences and make them feel less silly than what we’d expect from a 60’s movies.

But this is a silly movie nonetheless. One scene in particular exemplifies this better than any other; in the last half of the movie there is a ridiculous bar fight that feels straight out of the 60s Batman show, people start joining the fight for absolutely no reason, a group of girls play around with the fighters saying things in terrible English; tables, chairs and bottles are used and in the middle of the madness an exotic dancer saves Tetsuo by punching an attacker before turning to him and saying “better than French, English and American men together” with the stupidest expression that I’ve seen in my life before he throws her away. In the end, everyone ends up conveniently piled up outside the bar.The sound also plays an important role in the film, especially the song that gives the movie its name which is sung by Tetsuo to indicate his presence.     

This is one of the few cases of “style over substance” that work, a movie that embraces its style in such a way that it is completely defined by it. There might be deeper, more meaningful stories and characters to be found in other films in the genre, but Tokyo Drifter stands out because of how absurdly entertaining it is.